Warzone Ranked Play, explained: Battle Royale, rules, banned items, and more

The Warzone ranked grind begins anew as part of Black Ops 6. Welcome back to Ranked BR.

Battle royale Ranked Play is back in Call of Duty after a hiatus of several months, and Urzikstan will be the home of the grind for the time being. Make sure to grab your squad and get ready to hot drop to try to gain rewards and rank points as you climb in CoD’s competitive BR mode.

Here’s everything you have to know before dropping in to your first Ranked Play match in Warzone.

Warzone Ranked Play, explained

Ranked Play in Warzone is played in battle royale on Urzikstan for BO6. Performing well in matches will get you Skill Rating (SR) to propel you through the mode’s several Skill Divisions, where unique rewards await as you climb the ladder.

There are no restrictions on party skill this time around, as full squads can group up together without any restrictions. Restricted items include all weapons from MW3 and MW2, Rapid Fire, Dragon’s Breath, CHF Barrel, and Perks like Birdseye, Alertness, and Specialist.

Before you play, make sure to check out our best weapons to use in Warzone.

How to unlock Ranked Play in Warzone

Before diving into Warzone Ranked Play, there are some prerequisites. New accounts won’t be able to play right away, in an effort to curb cheaters who make new accounts.

“To access BR Ranked Play, players must first place in the Top 15 in Battle Royale or the Top Six in Resurgence across a total of 30 matches,” Activision said. Luckily, placements from Season One all count towards this requirement, so if you’ve played the game consistently, you will likely already be good to go.

When is Ranked Warzone coming out?

Warzone Ranked Play is available now. After a short delay in Season One Reloaded, it went live at about 2pm CT on Dec. 5. Good luck out there, operators!

Restricted items in Warzone Ranked Play

Some items cannot be used in Warzone’s Ranked Play, including certain weapons and attachments.

• Weapons
  • All MW3 and MW2 weapons.
  • All Launchers.
• Attachments
  • All Thermal optics
  • All Underbarrel launchers
  • CHF Barrel (Barrel)
  • Rapid Fire (Fire Mods)
  • Dragon’s Breath (Fire Mods)
• Field Upgrades
  • Reinforcement Flare
• Scorestreaks
  • Foresight
  • Sentry Turret
• Perks
  • Birdseye
  • Alertness
  • Specialist
• Vehicles
  • Cargo Truck
  • Triumph TF250-X
• Contracts
  • Big Game Bounty
  • Elite Contracts
• Miscellaneous
  • Proximity Chat
  • Text to Chat
  • Emotes
  • Gulag Events

Warzone Ranked Play Skill Divisions

Here are all of the Skill Divisions in Warzone Ranked Play, which are the same as in BO6 Ranked Play:

• Bronze
• Silver
• Gold
• Platinum
• Diamond
• Crimson
• Iridescent
• Top 250

Each Division has its own rewards attached, including the Champion rank for the number one overall player in each season, which unlocks a very rare and exclusive skin with a crown and flaming skull.

Warzone Ranked Play rewards

Ranked Play isn’t all about the ladder. Grinding ranks will also unlock rewards as you go, including:

• Rank rewards: At ranks Gold and higher, you can unlock exclusive skins and cosmetics such as emblems, calling cards, and more.
• Win challenges: Reaching career win thresholds unlocks special rewards like the default Ranked operator skin, a Warzone Ranked Play weapon camo, and the “Whisper” combat knife blueprint.
• Seasonal rewards: Every season will have its own unique rewards, too. These are unlocked by reaching each of the individual Skill Divisions.

How to gain SR in Warzone Ranked Play

Skill Rating is determined in Warzone BR Ranked Play by “your placement and your personal elimination performance,” according to Activision. Basically, the more kills you get and the higher you place in a match, the more SR you will gain.

However, “the amount of SR earned from an elimination is now determined by your rank in relation to your opponent,” so you will gain “more SR for killing higher ranked players, and less SR for killing those below you.”

The higher you rank up through the Skill Divisions, though, the more you stand to lose when you play a match. This means that if you get eliminated from a match early on with little kills, you will lose a lot more SR as the Skill Divisions get higher.

One positive here this year is that first loss of each day will not deduct SR, allowing players one mulligan for a terrible game or an unfortunate drop, or even an opponent that lags out.

This article will be updated with more information once it becomes available.